Reclaiming the Loch Ness Monster from the current tide of debunking and scepticism. If you believe there is something strange in Loch Ness, read on.

Monday, 15 October 2012

Into The Darkness

Following
on from a string of comments in a previous post and another item
noticed on the Internet, the title of this post seemed appropriate.

A
post recently appeared on the sceptic dominated site cryptozoology.com
from John Gillies giving a link to a night vision video he took some days back. John and I have something in common - we are both Central
Scotland
Nessie hunters and we both have night vision equipment. His video got
short shrift, but as one who has attempted the same, I can sympathise
with the challenge of night vision hunting.

I
tried night vision equipment for the first time back in April and you
can read the details here. The video clip below shows what is achievable
with entry level equipment.

Now normal explanations such as boats and
various local wildlife are absent at night time so they can be
discounted (though obviously it is not impossible that someone could
take to the loch without any giveaway torch light). Other
misidentifications such as logs will still be around so there is always
room for caution. John's clip shows two dark patches on the surface of
the loch which do not appear to move throughout the sequence. My thought
was that perhaps they might have been wind slicks which in daytime are
patches of calmer water reflecting the darker opposite shoreline while
the surrounding ripples reflect the sky.

However,
what a wind slick with both dark sky and hills looks like through
infra-red sensors is another matter. I don't know, but dismissing the
clip without offering an explanation is not critical thinking.

My
belief that the Loch Ness Monster is a creature of darkness suggests
surfacings at night may be more likely. However, just because it is as
dark above as it is below is not necessarily a reason to come to the
surface. There has to be a reason for such behaviour and the usual
suspects of food, reproduction, territory, etc would need to be
considered. In the meantime, such tools of exploration should be
encouraged.

The second domain of darkness is right at the bottom
of the loch. My belief is that these creatures mainly dwell at the
bottom in inert, energy saving states. I would also think they might
burrow into the four metre plus sediment just like air breathing
reptiles burrow into the soil to avoid the extremes of winter. In such a
state, they would be completely undetectable which brings us to
underwater television.

Plugging
in a TV feed and sending it down to the bottom or sides of the loch on a
mobile carrier was done
in the early 1980s and was also used during Operation Deepscan. The
technology has grown more sophisticated and the Remotely Operated
Vehicles (ROVs) used in the offshore oil and gas industry are impressive
in their range of abilities and have been to Loch Ness more than once.

During
the making of MonsterQuest's prematurely titled "Death at Loch Ness" in
2008, ROV manfacturer, Seatrepid, employed their Outland 1000 and
SeaRover II in deep exploration of the loch. You can see the results
below.

The company's ROVs also were employed in 2000 to pick up golf balls from the bottom of the loch!

But
like other modes of Loch Ness hunting, it has its drawbacks. For a
start, the extent of the area under light is quite small and so the ROV
would have to travel quite a bit to cover more surveyable ground. It need not be pointed out that the bottom surface of the loch covers a lot of square miles. The first ROV clip above is a bit misleading in that respect as the two ROVs look as if they are near each other and doubling the amount of light levels.

Secondly, as you can
see from the start of the first video, sediment disturbance can throw up
quite a bit of a cloud which would obviously make visibility even worse.
However, coming upon an area which suddenly throws up a cloud of silt
is itself a curious if not exciting prospect!

Lastly,
I am led to believe these machines are quite noisy. Clearly, things
sound different underwater than they would in the air, but it has to be
asked what the reaction of the Loch Ness Monster would be to
such an approaching machine? Would it move away before the light hits
or would it just stay still? Even if it did move off, one would expect a
could of silt and again that would be anomalous in a normally inert
environment (I am assuming currents such as seiches have a minimal
effect on the abyssal region of Loch Ness).

But
we can only go with what we know and have. It was assumed into the
1960s that sustained, wide camera coverage of the loch surface would
solve the mystery. Reading F.W.Holiday's time as an LNIB volunteer,
the problems were there to see - distance, weather and human error (see
"The Great Orm Of Loch Ness").

The
move to sonar and fixed underwater cameras in the 1970s was then mooted
as the way forward but again the inky depths of the loch and the
ambiguity of sonar interpretation defeated the endeavour.

Will
night vision equipment or ROVs further the investigation? Perhaps, but
considering such things are currently the domain of low budget amateurs
such as myself or the whim of companies making brief visits to the loch,
then confidence is not exactly sky high.

But
consider this, the two
exhibition centres at Drumnadrochit take in millions per year from
tourists. The entrepreneurs who own these facilities seem to have done
very well out of the Loch Ness Monster. The local economy is said to
benefit to the tune of £25 million from Nessie. What have they put back
into the investigation of this mystery that has rewarded them so well
over these last 30 years? No doubt, something has been put in, but it
seems research has been too dependent on visiting Americans or companies
field testing equipment.

How
much
is a ROV? No doubt they can climb into a six figure sum. A casual
google around found this ROV priced at $35,000. I don't know if this is
suitable and it may require further modifications, but compared to the
millions that flow into the Drumnadrochit coffers, it is not much at
all.

3 comments:

Maybe the Royal Navy could carry out some training exercises in Loch Ness. Send in two or three anti submarine boats (there are small ones that will pass through the lochs along the caledonian canal) to see if they can detect a mini sub that patrols along the loch floor trying to evade detection. It would be interesting to see the results of such an exercise and may also highlight problems associated with such a task in the conditions encountered in the loch. We may then have a better understanding on how to proceed in future sonar searches in Loch Ness. The results may also be beneficial to the Navy for use in the open sea as it may improve their ability to detect anomalous objects that could be of importance to them. Alas, I think this is unlikely to happen but it is at least plausible. It may be time to get in touch with the MOD and suggest it as a documentary.

Roland Watson wrote " normal explanations such as boats and various local wildlife are absent at night time so they can be discounted" but is this really the case? Flocks of birds roost on the loch, otters and mink hunt at night, as do poachers, and even law abiding people venture out on the loch after dark so there are many possible normal explanations for "something" out there.